Supplemental for Week 5

The Impressionist artist I found most interesting was Mary Cassatt. She was brought up in an upper-class family where she was raised and expected to be a house wife. Even though her father and society did not approve of her pursuing a career, she enrolled herself in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She was not even discouraged when the male faculty and students were not supportive of her in her studies, and later moved to Paris to study by herself. Even though she had many obstacles against her success as an artist, Mary pursued her career and eventually had art work showed at the Salon and later with the Impressionists. Her subject matter was also different from most Impressionists since she focused on portraits rather than landscapes, especially portraits of domestic women and children (as seen in Breakfast in Bed above). She even represented her portraits in an unconventional way by showing the truth. Mary Cassatt is very inspiring because she pursued her dream even though there were obstacles and also took risks by painting in a new way that was rarely ever seen.